Cornavirus can't stop the election process

KEN GRABOWSKI, Associate Editor

Published
5:45 pm EDT, Friday, May 8, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the recent May 5 Manistee Intermediate School millage renewal to be done by absentee ballots. Local clerks have witnessed an increase in the number of people filing for absentee ballots for upcoming elections. (File photo)

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the recent May 5 Manistee Intermediate School millage renewal to be done by absentee ballots. Local clerks have witnessed an increase in the number of people filing for absentee

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the recent May 5 Manistee Intermediate School millage renewal to be done by absentee ballots. Local clerks have witnessed an increase in the number of people filing for absentee ballots for upcoming elections. (File photo)

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the recent May 5 Manistee Intermediate School millage renewal to be done by absentee ballots. Local clerks have witnessed an increase in the number of people filing for absentee

MANISTEE — There aren't many parts of people's lives that haven't been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the way Americans cast a ballot in elections.

The May 5 special education millage renewal for the Manistee Intermediate School District was a perfect example when all voters were encouraged to cast absentee ballots instead of traditional voting at polling locations around the county. However, Manistee County clerk Jill Nowak was surprised at the way voters responded to the challenge.

"Overall it went fine, and we had 29.15 percent (5,682 of 19,489) of the registered voters vote, which is more than double what we normally have for a May election at about 12 percent," said Nowak. "I am sure that the applications to vote that went out to all voters from the state and the postage paid return envelopes did contribute to the increase in voter turnout. That is still great because we love to see the turnout increasing."

The only issue on the ballot was the request from the ISD for a five-year renewal of a 0.2104 special education millage for a Emotionally Impaired room. That measure passed by a 4,517-1,149 vote of the people.

Nowak said there were a lot of changes form the state election bureau for this election because of the COVID-19 situation that the clerks had to remember.

"For example if someone registered to vote within the last 14 days before the election, that application to vote was considered an absentee ballot application and they were issued a ballot," said Nowak. "The weekend before there was a lawsuit from a voter who was blind where we were notified we could now issue electronic ballots to voters who are visually impaired voters and treat it like a military overseas voter ballot, where they would send it in and then we would duplicate it in the precinct and tabulate it. There was just a lot of little tweaks on how we proceeded with that election."

Nowak praised the local clerks, election workers and her staff for adjusting to all the changes, including the ones that came in during the last few days of the election.

"It all worked out and we had to have a polling location in each jurisdiction that was available to voters who needed assistance," said Nowak. "We had some voters who just don't want to put their ballots in the mail, and they went to the precinct anyway. There weren't a lot who did that, but every polling location had someone. We did have some voters who were upset because they had to vote the absent voter ballot when they did show up and had to seal it and give it to the worker."

Nowak said she understands that some people like to actually put their ballot in the tabulator, but they had to work with what they could do considering the COVID-19 situation.

"I think 99.99% of the voters understood, but there were some who said they didn't hope this would become the norm because they didn't like doing it," said Nowak.

Clerks are not required to keep a permanent absentee voter list, but the ones that do said this style of voting could be more popular with the voters both in August and November.

"The clerks that do keep a list told me their permanent requests for absentee ballots doubled and tripled," said Nowak. "If the clerk doesn't have that permanent list, they have to notify the voter that they need to apply for an absentee ballot for each election. So we will have more absentee ballots going out in in the future."

Another first for an election was the way the board of canvassers met to certify the election.

"I put the board of canvassers in the county board room because it is a bigger area than where they normally meet and we could keep our six foot social distancing," said Nowak. "Since the courthouse building is closed, that meeting is still under the Open Meetings Act which means we had to put it on Zoom so people could either call in or come in to watch as we did it."

Nowak said they all wore masks and it took a little longer than normal as everyone had their own report and usually they share them.

"Usually one Democrat and Republican share one, but they each had their own," said Nowak. "So it it took a little longer, but worked out OK."

Whether or not the August or November elections will be impacted by COVID-19 remains to be seen.